Current Sentiment Among High School Seniors on the College Application Process

I recently had the opportunity to collaborate with several higher education colleagues who work in enrollment management and social media. If you currently work in one of these areas, feel free to join our Admissions Mastermind by HigherEdSocial Facebook group. Members of the group were very curious to better understand how current high school seniors are navigating the college application process. Just before the holiday break, the group provided some great question ideas and with the assistance of Dr. Kasandrea Sereno, we formed those questions into a short pulse survey. The survey was delivered to current high school seniors on ZeeMee, the largest and most active social media platform where prospective students connect and engage with each other in college/university communities.

Question #1

Question #2

Question #3

Question #4

In Question #3, 69.3% of high school seniors indicate they are finished submitting their college applications. For these students who answered "Yes" to Question #3, they received Question #4 as a follow-up.

75.1% of the seniors who indicated they were finished submitting their apps, would still consider applying to another college if they discovered it was a great fit for them. As a former dean of admissions, the results here were very interesting to me. It indicates that even though students might think/say they are finished with the application process, they are most definitely still open to exploring more options down the road. We know melt is always a significant factor after students are accepted. This insight seems to reaffirm the importance of keeping prospective students fully connected and engaged throughout the entire recruitment cycle.

Question #5

As you can see from the results here, just over 50% of high school seniors indicate that parents and guardians help them navigate the college application process. However, what really caught my eye is that over 16% of current high school seniors have no adult help. And that brings up another question. Should students even need adult help to submit a college application? Many believe the current college application system is far too complicated with too many unnecessary requirements and hurdles for students.

The most common submission in the "Other" category was college counselor. I wonder if these results indicate there is an opportunity for college counselors to play a more significant role is assisting high school seniors. On ZeeMee, official college and university partners are building community with all of their prospective students. This allows the high school students and the college counselors to be actively engaged with each other every day throughout the entire enrollment cycle.

Question #6

Question #7

Question #7 was only delivered to the students who answered "Yes" in Question #6. At this point in the recruitment cycle, 64.7% of high school seniors indicate they have attended an on-campus college/university tour. And based on the results in question #7, the on-campus tour is a very important factor in the college/university decision process for students. With 35.3% of seniors indicating they have not attended an on-campus tour and knowing it is such an important factor in their decision process, how can colleges/universities better leverage the campus visit experience?

Question #8

Question #8 was only delivered to the students who answered "No" in Question #6.

Question #9

Question #10

Question #10 was only delivered to the students who answered "Yes" in Question #9. It is likely no surprise that students are worried about the cost of attending college. It is however alarming to know that 83.6% of seniors indicate they are worried and of those students, 77.7% state they are moderately to extremely worried. In what ways can we better serve students and help ease their fears about the cost of attending college? What services, resources and products should students know about that could help them afford a college education?

Question #11

Question #12

When it comes to communicating with high school senior college applicants, 64.5% indicate colleges and universities send too many unnecessary emails. Despite this, 68.4% of high school seniors prefer colleges/universities communicate with them via email. A common assumption by those of us in higher education is that prospective students don't want to communicate via email or they are no longer paying attention to email. This data suggests that it's not email as a means of communication that is the issue, it is more likely the type of emails and/or frequency of emails being delivered by colleges and universities.

I hope you found this brief high school senior pulse survey insightful. Feel free to share your thoughts or questions in the comments. And if you would like more information on the growing number of colleges and universities building their student communities on ZeeMee, visit: https://colleges.zeemee.com.